


if being afraid is a crime we hang side by side

by twentyone



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Vodka, benefits of 5 star hotels, dank pussy just kidding, lorde fckn rules, louis and zayn do pre-show shots, niall liam zayn sandwich, vodka 4ever, vodka rulz, we love absolut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 01:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1038648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twentyone/pseuds/twentyone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>vodka does wonders to lonely boys</p>
            </blockquote>





	if being afraid is a crime we hang side by side

**Author's Note:**

> so yeah
> 
> title from Lorde's song Swinging Party

He opens the minibar to find a liter of Absolut. The benefits of 5-star hotels really do pay off, Zayn muses as he unscrews the cap, taking a tiny sip, just enough to let the sting of the vodka coat his tongue. Yeah, this bottle will be empty by the end of the night. 

“Zayn,” Louis’ voice penetrates through the door. “Have you checked out the minibar? This is insane!”

Zayn laughs. “Yeah, I’ve checked it out.” He opens the door connecting his and Louis’s room to let Louis in. “Pre-show shots?” He questions, offering the opened Absolut to Louis. 

“If course, my fine friend. But we need glasses first.” 

“Why?”

“Because class is my middle name, Zaynie. Sit tight, I’ll be right back.” 

Zayn chuckles to himself as Louis darts back into his room and returns a moment later with two cheap plastic shot glasses that he places in front of himself and Zayn. Zayn pours a generous measure of vodka into each, and they clink. 

“To happiness,” Louis states mournfully, gazing off into the distance. 

“To a bloody fantastic show tonight,” Zayn murmurs after him. They both down their shots in one go, Louis wincing slightly at the burn while Zayn revels in it. He pours them a second just as a sharp knock echoes through the room. Zayn lets Harry into the room, who squeals at the sigh of the opened vodka bottle. 

“Pre-show shots without me? Louis, how dare you?” Harry adopts a wounded expression and Louis lets him sit in his lap.

“Sorry babe. Zayn offered, and it’s rude to decline.”

Zayn averts his eyes while Louis and Harry kiss, thinking about a certain pair of lips that are only a few doors down at the moment. If those lips were in this room at this very moment, wrapped around a shot glass on Zayn’s stomach, doing body shots off of him, tongue licking salt off his skin, the same mouth leaning in to suck a lime out of Zayn’s mouth – 

His thoughts are interrupted with Louis clearing his throat. 

“Zayn, be so good as to pour Harry a pre-show shot. He’s feeling a bit left out.” 

“I’d be happy to,” Zayn replies, hastily pouring Harry a shot, and the three of them do a quick toast – ‘to love,’ says Harry, staring at Louis, who blushes, and ‘to soft anus cracks’ says Louis, staring right back at Harry, at which Zayn snorts back a laugh, and ‘to the truth,’ whispered from Zayn that neither of them hears, as he thinks about Liam and tries not to focus on the tightening sensation in the bottom of his stomach, barely noticing the burn of the alcohol in his throat as he downs the second shot.

A second sharp knock on the door jolts him out of his chair. He opens the door to find Liam and Niall, and the coils in his stomach clench uncomfortably. 

“Hey,” he says, letting them into the room. “We’re doing pre-show shots, wanna join?”

“Aw, yeah!” Niall says enthusiastically, bounding over to Louis and Harry and taking a large swig straight from the bottle. 

“Niall, that’s disgusting and unsanitary,” Harry remarks fondly. 

Niall shrugs. “Drink from your own bloody bottle, then. There’s one in every room, plenty to go around.” 

Zayn barely registers this exchange. He’s too busy staring at Liam, who is staring right back at him. 

“I think I’ll pass for now,” Liam tells him, patting Zayn on the shoulder as he moves into the room, hand lingering there a few seconds longer than would be considered just friendly. 

“For now?” Zayn asks, hating the hopeful lilt in his voice when he says it. 

“I prefer to get wasted after the show, not in front of thousands of twelve-year old girls,” Liam says, giving Zayn’s shoulder a quick squeeze. He doesn’t have time to think of a response. Liam moves further into the room, falling face first onto Zayn’s bed with a groan of delight, and Zayn watches him. 

Despite the fact that he’s wearing a sweatshirt, Zayn’s shoulder burns from the memory of Liam’s touch for far too long.

~

“I’m still holding you to your promise of ‘for now’, you know,” Zayn tells Liam as they wait in the darkness below the stage, about to go up and begin the show. 

Liam turns to face him, and Zayn loses himself in the shadows that play across Liam’s face. 

“I don’t break promises, Zayn,” he chuckles as they step onto the moving platform that will ascend them up to the crowd. The screaming starts, and Zayn has to lean in to catch Liam’s next words. “You of all people knows that,” he breathes against Zayn’s skin, and the words trap themselves there in that space between them. 

They’re moving upwards now, it’s completely pitch black and Zayn can’t see Liam, he can only hear him and feel him, the heat radiating from his body as the screams envelop them. A hand squeezes his once, briefly, and before he can react the lights are dancing around them and Harry is singing the opening verses of ‘What Makes You Beautiful.’ 

~

Like always, the concert is a blur of lights, and Liam, and paternal supportive glances from Louis every three minutes. 

Because fucking Louis knows everything, and Liam – Liam doesn’t.

His own thudding heartbeat is louder than the music, and he wonders how it is that Liam doesn’t hear it, too.

~

He’s sandwiched between Niall and Liam on the car ride back to the hotel. Niall’s exhausted tonight, and his head droops onto Zayn’s shoulder. Liam’s finger absentmindedly traces a path across Zayn’s thigh, and he focuses on commanding his cock to not get hard at the feeling of it. 

But when Liam ducks his head into the crook of Zayn’s neck and whispers, “Are we still finishing that bottle tonight?” he just can’t help it, he knows that the bulge in his jeans would be so obvious if they were in a lighted room but it’s against his control – like everything involving Liam, he can’t help himself – and Zayn knows that he won’t be able to wait much longer. 

“Yeah,” he breathes back, only because he’s incapable of forming words any longer than one syllable. 

Louis turns to face him from the front seat and winks subtly at Zayn, who rolls his eyes and prays that no one notices his – situation. 

~

Niall goes straight to bed, Harry goes to Louis’s room, and Liam follows Zayn to his. Zayn promptly ignores Louis’s pointed stares at him and leads Liam inside, hand resting on the small of Liam’s back. His heart starts pounding again, like during the show whenever Liam touched him or looked at him or – anything. 

Is this pathetic? Zayn asks himself as Liam pulls his sweatshirt off and flops onto Zayn’s bed for the second time that night. Is it normal, the way he’s affected by everything Liam does, and how his heart swells every time Liam notices him? Is this infatuation, or obsession, or lust, or – or - 

“Where’s that bottle?” Liam asks from the bed, rolling over onto his side, watching as Zayn moves to the minibar. 

“Coming right up, babe,” he replies, hoping that Liam doesn’t notice the shake in his voice. The cap is loose and he passes Sir Absolut over to the fucking gorgeous boy sprawled across his bed. Liam grins and twirls the cap off, tilting the bottle back and taking a hearty swig. Zayn watches his Adam’s apple bob up and down, stares at the faint stubble along his cheeks and fuck. 

~

Half an hour later Zayn isn’t wearing pants (and not because Liam ripped them off his writhing body, sadly) and he’s attempting to stand on his head, which, also sadly, isn’t going too well. Liam is making his eighth paper airplane out of the hotel stationary and writing little notes on them and flying them out the window. 

“Liam quick quick look I’m doing it!” Zayn yells frantically as he manages to get both his legs in the air for a half second. 

“Zayn!” Liam yells back, chucking the entire pad of paper out the window and hurtling over the bed to shove Zayn’s legs. He collapses into a pile on the floor, and everything spins for a moment. 

Then Liam’s on top of him tickling him and he’s laughing so hard that tears pool at the corners of his eyes and he squirms under Liam’s hard heavy body and Zayn doesn’t ever want to grow up from this. 

~

An hour and two warnings from the security guards later, they’re standing outside on the balcony, passing the near-empty bottle back and forth between them. Zayn is in his boxers and Liam has a hotel bathrobe and nothing else. The city is sprawled out in front of them, lights from their feet all the way out to the edge of the horizon, where the wide bowl of the sky meets the edge of the earth in a thin black line. 

He fumbles for a cigarette, and has trouble extracting his lighter from the pack. There are only a few cigarettes left, so his lighter fits inside the pack with them. With shaking hands he tucks it between his lips and tries and fails to light it. 

“Let me,” Liam slurs, setting the bottle on the ground. He plucks the lighter from Zayn’s hand and Zayn leans in to him instinctively as Liam flicks the lighter. The flame stutters and the tip of his cigarette glows a deep orange as Zayn inhales like a drowning man. The spinning world slows down a bit as the nicotine enters his blood. 

“Liam,” he starts, but his throat closes suddenly. 

“Yeah?” 

He doesn’t know what to say. Liam’s staring at him with those wide brown eyes and fuck, Zayn can’t do it. He can’t bear to have Liam tell him no, he can’t fucking – he can’t breathe with Liam, and he can’t breathe without him, and he looks out at the horizon at all the lights and wonders how he got here.

“How the hell did we get here?”

And Liam turns to Zayn and smiles, a small private smile, and his hand snakes its way into Zayn’s. 

They stand like that on the edge of the world, staring straight into the gaping black hole at their feet, and Zayn can almost almost feel himself falling. 

~

It’s five in the morning, and the hotel room has a quiet unearthly hush to it. The sun won’t come up for another hour, but the sky has lightened a few degrees. Enough to bathe Liam in a soft blue light, where he lays beside Zayn, naked except for the blanket tangled up between his legs. Zayn is still in his boxers.

Zayn can still feel the remains of the alcohol thrumming lightly inside of him. Normally he hates the comedown from drinking, but this – this right here, is a perfect feeling. Like he could do anything, and nobody else in the world would ever know about it. 

Liam sighs in his sleep and mutters something incomprehensible, shifting a bit. Without thinking Zayn swings a leg over his body and sits up so he’s straddling Liam’s back. The expanse of skin in front of him makes Zayn catch his breath for a second. Fingers trace patterns across Liam’s back, gently, softly. Zayn skims over his rippling back, around the thick ropes of muscle on his arms. 

“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” Zayn whispers, and the blue room at five in the morning absorbs his words like a sponge, keeping his secret. 

“Your skin is smooth. And warm, like…like a stone.” He places his palms flat against Liam’s shoulderblades, moving them up and down. “Your back is a map,” he continues, fingernails scratching at Liam’s shoulders as Zayn leans over him, tracing his way up Liam’s neck. “I want to live in these lands, the lands of your shoulders and back and neck and I want to memorize every bit of it. I want to mark your land as mine.” 

Zayn’s chest is pressed against Liam’s back as he whispers into Liam’s ear, so close that he can hear Liam’s pulse. He buries his nose in Liam’s short hair, presses his lips lightly at the juncture of his ear and neck, and just breathes Liam, and the world stops spinning. 

~

“Zayn.”

If he was sober, Zayn would have bolted upright and probably ran out of the room. But the blue haze has done something to his mind, and so he stays, stays on top of Liam where it’s warm. 

“Yeah?” 

Liam shifts a bit more, rolls over halfway, and Zayn goes with it, so that they’re lying side by side facing each other. Liam looks at him, and Zayn looks back, and they stay like that for what feels like forever, simply staring at each other like they could do it forever. 

~

It’s Liam who wraps an arm around Zayn and pulls Zayn into him, and their noses bump gently, and Zayn can feel Liam’s foot on his ankle and his knee at Liam’s hip and he lets his fingers play along Liam’s arm. 

It’s Zayn who tilts his head a bit to the side and presses his lips to Liam’s, lets them linger there for a few seconds, drowns in the heady wave of intimacy that douses his insides. He studies Liam carefully and it doesn’t occur to him to be afraid. Liam’s going to be with him tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. 

Liam doesn’t take his eyes off Zayn’s as he kisses him. His mouth parts against Zayn’s and his tongue slips between Zayn’s teeth, wet and warm. Zayn tightens his grip on Liam’s arm as he submerges himself in the cavern of Liam’s mouth. He curls into Liam’s steady body and they kiss slowly, languidly, in the soft five a.m. light as the last of the vodka filters out of Zayn’s body. 

~

“I’m in love with you, Liam.” 

“Zayn?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t ever leave me.” 

~

He wakes up to fingers tracing his back and Liam’s voice in his ear. 

“Remind me to apologize to the hotel for wasting their stationary,” he says, and Zayn chuckles. He rolls over and rests his head on Liam’s stomach, and Liam’s hands go immediately to his hair. 

“I wouldn’t say it was a complete waste,” Zayn says, smiling. 

“You’re probably right,” Liam says, looking down at him. “Or maybe I should write a thank-you letter to Absolut.” 

~


End file.
